Month: September 2016

I’m not a philosopher. (It would be tough to call anyone who often quotes Rocky Balboa as someone who philosophizes…). Still, I do try to share some ­­deep thoughts on these pages. As I have aged, and collected a lifetime’s worth of knowledge, I have been drawn to some great thinkers. For example, I have grown very fond of Ralph Waldo Emerson. I recently purchased a text (“Self-Reliance and Other Essays”) penned by Emerson that I greatly look forward to reading.

Confucius is one of the great minds of history. His philosophies, written 2600 years ago still resonate today. I figured that I’d take some time to examine just a few of the many statements left to us from Confucius to see how they relate to our lives as educators and teachers of children. We’ll begin each section with a quote from Confucius and follow that up with my own thoughts and reflections.

This is one of those stories that, at once, is hard to believe, but is the absolute truth. This is one of those stories that remind us all that failure is part of success. This is true even for people who are considered the greatest of all time, for, you see, they weren’t always considered as such.

This seems like a story about baseball, but it’s not. It’s a story about failure. And success. Great success.

(The following passage comes from a draft of my original manuscript The Least Among Them which provides a unique history of the New York Yankees franchise.)

As football season is now upon us, I determined that it is worth sharing this passage that highlights the connections between the New York Yankees and professional football. These connections go back to the early days of both sports. While some of the players’ names in this passage will be familiar to sports enthusiasts, this essay includes the story of one of the least remembered New York sports legends of all time.